Why Positive Reinforcement Fails So Often

Before I became a mom, I was a substitute teacher in 12 schools, with a focus in special education, but I also worked general classes as well. From general ed, to self-contained special education, to classes specifically for children with severe psychological disabilities - I've come across a LOT of management styles applied to about 7,000-10,000 kids. Most, with the exception of the classes for the children with psychological disabilities, used systems they called "positive reinforcement." These systems are also called Positive Behavior Incentives.

These systems usually use colorful charts, tokens, writing names on the board, etc but the most common is the color charts. The typical color scheme is red, yellow/orange, and green. And just like a stoplight, green is what you want to see! Some have even more colors, but for the sake of time, we're going to focus on this one. When a child does something incorrectly, the teacher either changes their card color, or instructs the child to change it themself. For the rest of the day, it will be displayed for all to see that this child has misbehaved in class.

Now let's step outside of the classroom. Let's take this chart to YOUR job. Every time the boss sees something they don't like, they post it on the bulletin board. Let's say the boss enters your office and sees that your trash can is quite full. Your boss says to you "I think having a trash can this full looks unprofessional. You should take care of that yourself, instead of waiting for the janitorial crew to remove it tonight. Imagine a customer seeing that! I don't want to see a can this full again." And then, they go out the bulletin board in a communal area of your work, and they change YOUR card to yellow, instead of just making a note in your personnel file that you were counseled on office cleanliness. Now all of your coworkers, and anyone else who enters that space knows you have gotten in trouble for... something. The next day, you return from your lunch break to see your card is on RED. You know you were 1 minute late getting back from your lunch due to a car accident down the road, but should that warrant an automatic red? Yes. Because you just got in trouble yesterday. The boss doesn't like it when employees act up day after day. They're showing you they means business! How does all of this make you feel - having what should be private, confidential personnel actions against you being displayed publicly? In some areas, it's actually illegal to share it with people who don't have a "need to know." It's considered a violation of your privacy.

Back into the classroom now. Your "behavioral issues" have now been posted on the wall, or the chart, for all to see. This causes immense anxiety in many children. They can become so distracted by the fear of people knowing that they may struggle to learn much of anything for the rest of the day. Some children are even known to have complete meltdowns the moment the teacher says something about changing the color. Unfortunately, children with disabilities are the most targeted children with these systems as well. In the name of "fairness," they are often not granted compassion, or judged based on their personal abilities and disabilities. There's often no real support or educational efforts to help the child learn better ways. Just public humiliation and punishment.

Now the charts, token boards, or whatever is being used is only the first part of these systems. The second part is the incentive. Incentives vary from class to class, and from school to school. Most earning periods for specific classrooms are 1 week. So if you mess up on Monday, no matter how great you do the entire rest of the week, you don't get the incentive. Incentives can be anything from special snacks, to extra recess, to small prizes. But regardless, 1 mistake can be all it takes for you to be left out. This is especially problematic for children with various disabilities. Punishment for minor infractions should not be dragging out for a full week for any child, culminating in reliving the moment they got in trouble when everyone else does something together, while the child who made a mistake sits out. But it's especially problematic to be excluding children with disabilities based on behaviors that were (often) caused by the disability itself. After a few mistakes, these children very often stop trying. Some even develop the "bad kid" or "I don't care" personas. They believe they are broken, incapable of being like other children. Incapable of being "good." So they develop the persona they need to cope with those feelings - to mask what they perceive as inadequacy. They're probably being bullied over the exclusions they keep facing - the "bad kid" personas are a way to defend against that harassment.

Now if you think the above is problematic, wait until you learn about the school-wide incentives. These are usually a movie day, extra recess, or "parties." They generally occur on a monthly or quarterly basis. These often rely on tokens to pay "admittance," and if you don't have enough, you go to detention instead. They don't always call it detention - it's often called "Study Hall" where they're expected to sit in silence while the rest of the school has a fun activity for 30 minutes - 2 hours. Sometimes they're even told to hunch over a desk or table with their heads down the whole time. Let's say this is a monthly thing at your school. You make a mistake on the first day of the month. You know that's the end. You will not have enough tokens for the special event. Now you dread every single day of the entire month, knowing you have detention coming up in 4 weeks. You'll be rounded up with the other "bad kids" and made to sit quietly, in mind-numbing silence, while the rest of the school has fun. This affects children as young as 5. As you might guess, this also increases anxiety in struggling children who are trying their best, even if it doesn't look that way from the outside. This is a pretty common way of excluding children with disabilities without a paper trail. They weren't "excluded," they "just didn't have enough tokens to pay." The effect is similar to an in school suspension, but they don't have to call it that, or document it as a punishment. As well, this is usually double jeopardy. They were punished when it happened based on their classroom rules/punishment system, and now they're being punished again for the same infraction. How many times do children need to be punished for the same little mistake?

This "earn a special privilege" is the most common form of "Positive Reinforcement" I've ever come across - both as a school employee, and as a parent. But it's not positive reinforcement - not by the definition of the actual words. This is a punitive system. It creates a whole special event for the sole purpose of punishing kids who make mistakes. They reworded things from "If you don't behave, I'm taking your extra recess" to "If you don't earn enough tokens, you won't be able to buy your extra recess." And when you look at it that way, you can see that the difference between the 2 is very very small. The cause and effect are the same, the only real change is the words!

Many people have suggested I setup a similar system in my own home. From professionals who work with children with disabilities, to friends and family - they love the sounds of these things! "Make a chart! Let him earn a special treat!" I won't do it. I know they fail. They also rewire a child's brain to make earning the goal reward the priority. It demolishes intrinsic motivations. Instead of making a bunch of charts with a bunch of rewards, we just give our kids the reward.

If your brain just imploded, let me give some shiny examples. (I don't know why they're shiny, just go with it.)
I took my son, QuackQuack, on a walk around our neighborhood. He did pretty well, but after an hour of exploring, it was time to make our way back home. He didn't want to go back home. We were seconds away from a meltdown. Following Behavior Incentives systems, I would have said "If you get up right now, and walk home without anymore fussing, you'll get watermelon when we get home." Lay out the expectation - follow through with the reward IF they complete all tasks as told. I didn't say that. Instead I said "We have watermelon at home! The faster we get home, the sooner we eat watermelon!" Instantly, my son was turned around and walking home. We made it home without further incident.

I take QuackQuack into small, calm stores. He cannot yet handle bigger or busier stores without having hours-long meltdowns. But he loves smaller dollar stores. Every time we go he gets to pick out a small toy. These generally cost me about $2. I have never bribed him with the toy, he just gets one. We only go a couple times a month and I think it's a great way to make shopping a little easier on young children. But neither of mine have ever liked waiting in line. I don't even like waiting in line! So I say to him "I know you don't want to be waiting here anymore. I don't either. But after we pay, you'll get to open your new toy! I just need you to hang in there for a little bit longer. Would you like to sing or count with me while we wait?" I'm sorry to other shoppers' ears, but if they choose to sing, we sing as quietly as I can manage. This has worked every time. Even when my son seemed so withdrawn that we weren't even sure if he understood us half of the time - it worked. "Wait, pay, open toy. Wait, pay, open toy," I often said.

If you, a grown adult, do something that your parents don't approve of - you buy a car they don't like, you accidentally overdraft your bank, you take a job they think you're too good for - and they call everyone they know and tell them, how does that make you feel? Does it help you to have everyone you know hounding you about it? In most cases, it simply makes you feel more anxious about the situation. Now everyone is teaming up against you, and it's usually something minor. Your child's behavioral issue doesn't need to be displayed for everyone to see, either. And you really don't want to be dragging charts everywhere you go, or train your child to only engage for a tangible reward. I challenge you to stop with the charts and the bribes, and just find the positive thing the child WILL get when they get whatever the thing is done - no matter how long it takes them or what happens before then. You need them to get in the bath? "You're favorite bath toy is in there!" You need them to buckle into the car? "Once you get buckled in, I'll be able to turn your music on!" They don't want to leave the park? "Your (favorite toy, pet, snack, etc) is waiting for you at home, let's go get it!" Put in the work, and give it some time, and you will see growth. Helping them see the positives on the other side of what needs to be done alleviates anxiety that other systems often increase, while teaching a valuable life skill. And I'll be honest: It doesn't always work on the first or second try. But with time, they get used to it. They trust it. And they grow!

But what about in the school setting? School and home are 2 totally different setups. In school, the most common behavioral issue is children being "off-task." So what works? Instead of saying "Jimmy, sit back in your seat and do your work." "Jimmy, pick up your pencil and do your work." "Jimmy, stop spinning your pencil like a helicopter and do your work." "Jimmy, change your card to red!" Try these: "Jimmy, come over here real quick... why aren't you in your seat?" (the answer may surprise you. Gently guide him back to his seat when the problem is solved.) "I can't wait to see how great you do on this." "Looking good, keep going!" "You're almost there, you got this!" Don't single Jimmy out, either. When I subbed, I did 5 minutes of grading, followed by a quick round of quiet praise - alternating between the 2 until the children were done. I made sure to compliment 3-4 kids each round. The downside is, we ALWAYS ran out of stuff to do by the end of the day. My classes got their work done quicker than the teacher had planned for. Every single student completed their work. No chart changes, no threats, no punishment. Getting scolded causes most people anxiety, and ADHD kids - who are the most likely to be off-task - already have anxiety from ADHD much of the time. Scolding them all day long isn't helping that. Anxiety in itself is a distraction. So some positive reinforcement (the dictionary kind!) goes a long way in managing these issues. In fact, I rarely knew which kids had a disability in general education classes, because teachers rarely left notes even when the kids had 504 plans. I usually found out after the day was over that I had 504 kids in my class. I treated all kids the same, and everyone got a little praise for their efforts, whether they were on task or not. If you work in a classroom setting, I challenge you to give it a try.

Ultimately, every child is unique and responds differently to things. One thing, however, is certain. If you have a sensory sensitive kid, the absolute last thing you want to do is overwhelm them with anxiety. More chances to lose things they want is probably not optimal. So find your way of spinning things into a positive light so your child can follow suit and learn that coping skill.